Train for Western Riding
Lesson
4
Nancy Cahill
Copyright Ó 2009
Advanced Hand and Leg Control
Your
Hands and Your Legs: Important Tools in Controlling Your Horses’ Body
You possess two key tools for
controlling your horse: your hands and your legs.
Your hands are the best way to control
your horse’s front end – everything from her shoulders forward. You must control the horse’s forehand, being
able to move it over, to set her up for a good lead change.
Your legs not only to control the
movement of your horse’s hindquarters, they also determine the impulsion or
drive of your horse. Impulsion is what keeps you clean through the lead change.
You are actually trapping all the
horse's movement between both hands and both legs. This is the most
communication that you can give her about what you would like her to do.
She has to feel what you want her to do.
An important goal of this lesson is
for you to separate what you use your hands for from what you use your legs to
do. I want you to learn to use each
separately and together correctly. Once you master hand and leg controls, you can position your horse
for quality lead changes.
Your
hands: Controlling the Horse from the Shoulders Forward
A rider’s hands should control
everything from the horse’s shoulders forward.
The goal is to get the horse to break all the way from her nose, her
poll and her withers, and then to pick up her shoulders. Every time you use your reins, hopefully
you’ll be aware of that goal. Of course, your horse will start with perhaps
just breaking at the poll and then get softer in the other body parts as she
becomes supple.
An added benefit to teaching your
horse to pick up her shoulders is that this movement will cause her neck to
naturally drop some. This will keep her in frame with a nice, consistent top
line as she moves. During a lead change, this can make for a very pretty and
effortless-looking change. The ideal position for her neck is level with her
withers or just a bit below. The ideal, however, is seldom the norm.
Some horses are naturally “downhill”
in front, that is, they slope downward from the top of their hip to the
withers. In these horses, we have to
work more on body carriage than with a horse that is naturally level.
My technique to help the “downhill”
horse is to use draw reins for leverage.
Sometimes when I say this, everyone gets very defensive – there is a lot
of controversy about the use of draw reins. However, I believe if they are properly
used as a training aid, draw reins are the kindest way to loosen up a horse and
help establish trust, along with helping us to teach proper body carriage.
To use draw reins properly, we
never want the draw reins to run between the front legs….that is, hooked to the
front ring on the girth. This is
entirely counterproductive for what we are trying to accomplish as reins in
this position pull the shoulders down.
(You may have seen people who do this – their horses actually slope
downwards when they lope, which not only limits their movement but makes the
front legs have more knee. I also think
it is because if the horse’s motion gets too forward, you lose the lateral
control--if you needed to turn quickly, it would be very difficult.)
The benefit of draw reins is that they
redirect the pull on a horse’s mouth.
So as I pull on the reins, the horse
always has the option of taking the pressure completely off her mouth by
changing her head and neck position. If
I use the draw reins correctly, the horse will move her head downward to
release the pressure. They also give me
more leverage than direct reins. With a normal direct rein, if the horse wants
to poke her head up, I can’t hold it down.
A 1,000-pound horse will beat me every time. But with draw reins, I can hold my hands out
wide and down low, and actually prevent her from getting her head above my
hands.
I call draw reins my
“equalizer.” I don’t see anything equal about my size and a horse’s size,
so I want an equalizer. The draw reins help me to tell the horse when she gets
in the right position, and give her an easy way out – a way to comply with what
I want. When she is in the right position, I can release her head and the
pressure is gone.
I can get this effect with draw reins
by just parking my hands; I don’t have to tighten because the horse can’t go
anywhere. Just as soon as I feel no pressure on my hands, I release her head
and neck.
Using this technique, I have the horse
softening herself. I am telling her that when she gives, I let go. It’s like a
tug of war, but I know I will win. There is a key here that can make this
technique successful or unsuccessful – that is:
It is
very important that you let go the instant the horse gives.
Remember, you are trying to teach the
horse how to react to your cues. So your
timing must be on target – you hold, she gives, you release.
For example, if the horse bounces her
head up, you would take a hold, your hands wide and down. Your hands would
remain quietly in that position until she releases her pressure against you.
The minute she does this, you release your hold. It does take conditioning on
your part to stay there, holding quietly while waiting for her to give, but you
must repeat this procedure until she leaves her head where you want it when you
release the pressure.
Never let your determination over
rule safety! If the horse has any kind of fit, turn loose of her head. She
could flip over, fall down, or otherwise injure herself and you in her attempts
to free her head.
When I first hold a horse with draw
reins, she may feel uncomfortable and even a bit scared or trapped. This is
not unusual, and it is very important that if your horse reacts this way, that
you give her a little extra time to become comfortable with the pressure. You
may have to pull lightly at first and then gradually apply more pressure.
The horse must know that there will be
a reward, no matter how small that might be. It won’t take long---if you
are careful never to betray her trust—until she realizes that she is safe and
secure. When that idea becomes established
in the horse’s mind, it indicates that she trusts me. Now I can put more pressure on her mouth
without scaring her.
You are going to encounter resistance
in the beginning. It’s not comfortable for the horse at first, and her neck is
going to get a bit sore. But you must continue until “give and take” becomes a
habit. Every time you draw on her you are actually lifting her shoulders, which
is an elevation you will need later in your lead change.
Your Legs: A Driving Force for Collection
Collection means every body part of the
horse is going where you want it to go, when you want it to go there.
Collection creates a totally
controlled atmosphere that makes teaching other maneuvers easier.
The draw reins are a good tool for
attaining collection. When using direct
reins, the horse is in control while I’m trying to teach her collection. But with draw reins I have the leverage and
I’m in control — therefore it’s easier for me to develop collection.
But draw reins alone won’t do the job
– you will also need your legs.
Every
time you take hold of the draw reins, you must use your legs--every time.
A good analogy is a swimmer doing the
breaststroke. Instead of doing the breaststroke by pulling herself along with
her arms, her main power comes from the push of her legs. Likewise, when your horse lopes, she
shouldn’t be pulling herself along with her front legs, but her power should
come from behind.
A horse will quit you if you just draw
her up with the reins without using your legs to drive her forward at the same
time.
If you use your legs without using the
draw reins, then she’s just going to go forward with no collection.
Whenever you pull on her head, you
must use your legs at the same time to drive her up---this is the first
important element of collection. (It doesn’t
matter the gait you are asking for, walk, jog or lope.)
The second part of collection is
cadence. The cadence, or rhythm the horse lopes, is everything.
While working on collection, if you get a
“Lawrence Welk-type lope,” (a 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a
4), you’re not really loping. You are getting a four-beat lope instead of a
real, three-beat lope.
It helps to count while you are loping
to see what you are getting. Some people count each footfall in the lope. As I talked about earlier, that means you
would count (when in the left lead) when the right rear hits the ground – 1 –
when the left rear/right front hit the ground together – 2 – and when the left
front hits – 3. But the three-beat lope is hard for me to count; it
sounds too quickly to count —
I would rather count four whole
strides, each time she comes off the ground in a stride: 1--2--3--4. I count
the complete movement of four strides, and then start over again. My goal is
that she makes every stride look like the last stride. When she can do this,
collection will be easy. My four-count will be steady and consistent.
Now if you do get a four beat gait,
you have to decide what to do to correct it. Your choices are whether to pull a
little more with the draw reins or to drive a little harder with your
legs. Do one or
the other until you get a true three-beat stride. Combining your legs and hands
in just the right amount requires a perfect balance as you back her front end
off with the reins, elevate the whole body, and drive the back end forward with
your legs.
If your horse isn’t a good loper, this is an extra chore and will take more time. But
keep after it – it will be worth it in the long run.
Your Legs: Controlling The Horse from the Shoulders Back
Because your leg is going to control
the horse’s body from her shoulders back, you must teach your horse to respond
to your legs quickly and without resistance or fear.
The ultimate goal is to be able to
control all the horse’s body parts separately; to move her head separately from
her neck, separately from her ribs, etc.
To be able to achieve this goal and move any of her body parts anywhere
you wish, you’ve got to put your legs in the correct position and use the
correct amount of pressure.
In using your legs, it is difficult
for me to explain how much pressure you’ll need. Every horse is different. Some have sides like iron and can hardly feel
you push lightly; others are so light they react almost before you touch them.
Those are the extremes, but for most horses it takes a lot of strength in your
legs to get a good reaction.
You are going to get tired. You may have to take frequent breaks, not for
your horse, but for your legs as they build up. That’s OK – just sitting on your
horse while your legs return to normal is a good lesson in patience for your
horse.
You want to use the lightest cue to
which your horse will respond. As you wrap your leg around the horse, you
hope that she will respond to your calf first, but if that is not enough, at
least to your heel. If you find that you
have to use almost more pressure than you are capable of producing to get a
reaction, you may need spurs just as another “equalizer.”
When I use a spur, it is only an
extension of my heel and it has nothing to do with jabbing. With a spur I can use less pressure to get
a response, and my contact is more focused.
Remember, you push with the spur.
When all else fails, I may have to
stick a horse to get its attention, but I try not to do so. If this happens, I quickly return to pressing
– remember showing the horse the “easy way” –in this case that means reacting
to a light spur pressure.
The best way to teach your horse to
react properly to your legs, and to teach your legs where to press to get the
correct response, is to use specific exercises.
We’ll learn those exercises in the next lesson.
Assignment:
Send
me answers to these questions:
1.
Why is it important to utilize your hands and legs?
2. Where is the ideal headset?
3. Why should you attach draw reins to the side
of the girth and not between the front legs?
Send
your detailed report and to: nancy.orders@gmail.com